Help! SWR owners..too much bass?

Heres my problem I can't figure out yet. I'm using a SWR SM-900 with a Goliath III 4x10 cab. Awesome sound for me but while I'm playing on stage It seems to bassy at times and I can't make out the notes I'm playing at times.(yes, I tried turning down the bass knob at eq as well). Soundman says it sounds fine out there but up here it sounds muddy to me.

Stage is to small for me to stand far away so maybe thats why, but is there any other solutions? should I stand to the side or turn morn mids up and bass down. I thought it was my volume and preamp settings so I adjusted those. I have my preamp at 3'o clock and my master around 9 to 12 at times. I set my limiter to 11'oclock as well. I think I need more mids but I haven't figured out what setting to put them at yet. Can anyone help?

put some more high mids and highs? i have an sm-400 and i boos bass slightly and boost treble sometimes boosting some low mids and i use 2 15''s im not muddy, maybe its your bass? try out treble and higher mids

I second boosting the highs/mids. Also, I've noticed that my amp sounds much bassier when I'm standing beside it. Once i get out in front of the speakers, I can hear alot more definition. Would this apply to you as well? Or does teh size of the stage limit your flexibility?

I also have two 9-volt batteries I think need changing on my bass. Due to the size of the stage and amount of room I have, I actually stand almost in front of it. I can feel the bass coming out but I can't make out sqwat what note is being played clearly. I will take your advise guys and adjust my mids a little better too.

Really??? I played through an all-SWR rig until fairly recently and I never found that problem. Instead, I always felt like you HAVE to boost the bass on SWR amps, and depending on the bass guitar, sometimes have to cut the treble a bit.

Now that I've been mixing and matching SWR with Aguilar stuff I find all things being equal, Aguilar cabs give you a bit more bass and low mids and Aguilar preamps give you a little less brittle sound that the cutting highs of the SWR.

I think the proximity on stage to your rig will probably have a lot to do with it, as well as how the bass sits in the mix with the rest of the band. Depending on how your guitarist(s)' setup sounds, you might just not be cutting through the mix enough to hear yourself properly?

Whenever I've got uncontrolable lows, it's usually because I'm hearing it comming from the PA's front of house and/or drum fill. The boominess is exagerated because you're not standing in the PA's line of fire.

Whenever I've got uncontrolable lows, it's usually because I'm hearing it comming from the PA's front of house and/or drum fill. The boominess is exagerated because you're not standing in the PA's line of fire.

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Good point! I've played large gigs where I had to keep my stage volume way down due to crappy monitors. In those instances, all I could hear of my bass playing was thrummm thrummm thrummm from the mains.

It definitely makes sense to boost mids. Your stage rig might sound like crap by itself (nasal, honky), but the important thing is to hear yourself in the mix and rely on your sound man to make you sound good in the mains. Boosting mids might be tricky if your stage rig is miked or the DI is post-EQ... but hopefully your soundman can deal with whatever you send him. If your DI is pre-EQ, nothing to worry about.

I had to read the manual finally just to finally figure out that each concentric knob is controlled by the bottom being the frequency and the inner knob being the level Now I seem to understand my eq a little better at least. Thanks Brian for your advice it seems to be alot better now. Also REVGroove thank you because I'm building a box stand to raise my rig up off the floor as well.

I don't find that there's TOO MUCH bass through my rig, though I do run lots of mids. I run a Goliath Senior and a Big Ben, and if I WANT the big bottom stuff, I can play with my Aphex 204 and my EQ, but normally run the mids boosted.

What you are describing sounds like some sort of room problem, not a rig problem. Spends some quality time with your EQ in the room that gives you this effect. Chances are there's a frequency that you currently have boosted that makes your sound boomy. I find that you can get a really nice bassy sound without boominess (and it generally uses a bit less amp power, as low frequencies have high power demands) if you cut the lowest frequencies (around 40-50 hz), and boost the low mids (around 100 hz). Play around though. The best thing you can do is spend a lot of time with it.